West Australian Dept of Education Policy - Coursework Example

TOPIC: AN ANALYSIS OF WEST AUSTRALIAN POLICY DOCUMENT ON DUTY OF CARE (NAME) (COURSE NAME) (INSTITUTIONS NAME) 20th MARCH 2009 An analysis of West Australian Education Policy document on duty of care Introduction Duty of care as a policy concept is legally binding having drawn its mandate from a collection of legal precedence established by the courts over time. The writing of the policy document on duty of care gives guidance to the setting up of most school policies and practices. The policy document describes in simplicity the concept of duty of care; explaining how teaching staff may carry out their duties of caring for students as well as how and when the support staff and volunteer workers may owe duty of care to students. Duty of care policy of the West Australia’s department of education covers a number of issues as explained below: Issues in the policy document The first issue is explaining the meaning of reasonable care. On the bare minimal, reasonable care is explained as ensuring that students are not put at risk by doing something or failing to do something that can cause the student to suffer injury or harm. It involves taking precautionary measures that can help prevent obvious bad happenings that can be injurious to the student. This also includes providing sufficient precautions and instructions to students concerning hazards. The level of care for young students is higher than that for mature students. The policy acknowledges the fact that age goes hand in hand with a student’s experience and capability to take care of him or herself. Appropriate care measures, according to the policy, must be taken to cushion students with physical and intellectual impairment. A student with disabilities may not appreciate the possibility of danger and therefore is vulnerable to harmful situations. Special care should also be given to students with particular medical conditions such as asthma, heart condition, haemophilia or epilepsy. Special care should be taken to protect the students so that they are not at risk. The policy issues a guideline that ensures increased care for the students who behave in a manner that can expose them to injury. Increased care is outlined in the policy document in relation to school activities that have in themselves a high risk of injury. Whenever students are placed in hazardous environments that have a high probability of harm then increased care for students is required. The second issue in the duty of care policy document is on guidelines of assessing the risk in a school activity. Consideration should be made on the probability of hazards occurring when assessing the level of risk in a school activity. The magnitude of the risk should be assessed so as to determine whether to run the risk of any school activity or not. Another consideration is the expense, difficulty and inconvenience involved in alleviating the risk. The policy document gives guidelines on assessing the advantages of running a school activity versus the disadvantages or risks involved. The assessment allows the school to determine whether to take the risk of running an activity or not. The third issue that is addressed by the policy document concerns the role of teaching staff in the duty of care for the students. The document argues that duty of care from a member of teaching staff comes from the student –teacher relationship that exists from their interactions. Whenever a student is present at school or undertaking any activity in the school, then duty of care from the teacher automatically arises. The duty of care is however, not limited to students enrolled at the school at which the member of teaching staff is employed. For instance, when students congregate for an inter school academic symposium and they are placed under the supervision of one teacher, then the teacher is obliged to take measures in all circumstances to protect them from risks or harm likely to occur. To a teacher, duty means providing adequate supervision, making sure that premises, equipment and grounds are safe before students can use them. The policy also stipulates that a teacher should employ ways of preventing bullying in schools as well as providing medical assistance or seeking help from a doctor or in the hospital for a student who becomes sick or injured at school. Some situations require that the member of staff discharges the duty of care by him or herself. Such are circumstances where students are known to act disorderly if supervised by someone else other than the member of staff. In other situations, the member of staff may delegate the duty of care. When deciding to delegate the duty of care to other people, the teaching staff must satisfy that the person is suitable for the duty assigned. The guideline provided for delegation stipulates that a member of teaching staff may be deemed to have breached duty of care if reasonable care is not exercised in the choosing of an appropriate person to be delegated the assignment. It is therefore important to assess the students before delegating the duty of their care. The number of students involved in an activity will determine whether their duty of care can be delegated or not. As observed earlier, the age, experience and behavior of students should also be assessed. It is not advisable for instance, to place young, immature and incapable students under the care of a person who is not a member of the teaching staff. The nature of the environment in which the students are carrying out an activity is also a factor to consider. Students working in a laboratory may require somebody who is a technician to supervise them. The teacher should also consider the age, experience and general ability of the proposed person to take care of the students before delegating. The fourth issue that has been addressed by the policy is concerning non teaching staff, volunteers and external providers. The non-teaching staff, volunteers, external providers and the community at large must according to the policy, take reasonable measures to avoid actions or omissions that could be injurious to students. Some of the actions or omissions that are critical to the safety of students are given in the policy document as follows: a worker on the school compound should not leave a rubbish bin in the middle of a hallway as someone is likely to trip over it and suffer harm. A worker at the farm who sprays pesticides on the school’s fruit trees should take care so that the health of students is not harmed. A laboratory assistant should not leave chemicals lying around the laboratory as it may be dangerous to students. It is worth noting that non-teaching staff, volunteers and external providers do not have the same special duty of care as the teaching staff. They should not be responsible for personally caring for students unless they are requested to do so. Some job descriptions however allow a non –teaching staff to personally care for the students. Non-teaching staff, volunteers and external providers have a right under the policy to refuse a request to personally take on the care of students and their decisions have to be respected by teaching staff members. However, when the duty of care is in line with their normal work duties then the non-teaching staff member has no choice but to take up the challenge of caring for the students. When the non-teaching staff, volunteers or external providers agree to take up the duty of care that require them to personally attend to students without the presence of a member of teaching staff, then they must take such measures that are required to protect students from risks and harm. The importance of the policy The WA Education policy is important as it gives guidelines to the teaching staff that reminds them of their professional duty of protecting students from harm. The staff members are equipped with guidelines on assessing circumstances that are foreseeable to cause disaster and take appropriate measures to avoid such hazards. The policy also challenges teachers to balance between cushioning students under their care from harm and ensuring that students are independent as they take advantage of the opportunities for learning. The policy is also important as it gives guidelines on the place of non-teaching staff, volunteers and external providers in ensuring the safety of students. The policy however strongly places the onus of student safety in the hands of teaching staff. Members of the community are also encouraged to ensure that they create safe environments where students can learn from that are free of hazards. The subjects of the policy The policy addresses various people within the education provision sector. The first group comprises members of teaching staff. The teachers spend most of the time with the students in a classrooms learning or in the field for practical or co-curriculum activities. The members of staff must therefore understand the guidelines entrenched within the policy document and use the guidelines therein to approach issues of safety of students. The second group that is subject to the policy document is the people involved in the education of the students other than the teaching staff. The policy document addresses volunteers, members of non-teaching staff and external providers. Volunteers in the document are people or organizations that offer services for school activities but do not receive or expect remuneration for the services rendered. The volunteers addressed in the document are those that deal with child related service provision. The members of non-teaching staff are those people employed at the premises of a government school but are not teachers or do not take on the role of going to class and teach. The non-teaching members of staff include; school nurses, school chaplains and school-based police officers. Other non-teaching staff members include: school registrars, farm supervisors and field assistants, library assistants, laboratory assistants, youth support officers, social trainers and exam supervisors. The policy defines a student as the one who is enrolled at a government school. The other subject to the policy on duty of care consists of external providers. External providers are individuals or organizations that are contracted by the school to provide services for the school activity. Examples of external providers include; Private dance or gym instructor and Challenge Stadium Aquatic Centre. Hypothetical scenarios In western Australian government schools, a number of students arrive early to school at about 7:40 am each morning. The first teachers usually arrive about thirty minutes later. In such a situation, it is the responsibility of the school to ensure that students are attended to from the time they enter the school compound. To ensure that the responsibility guideline is adhered to, the teachers can consider developing a duty Rota system that puts teachers in shifts so that they each in turn report to school earlier than the other colleagues so as to supervise the students before the commencement of studies. However, it is only logical that an agreeable time for example in the above typical time of 7.40 am, is settled upon for the earliest student to arrive at school so that the teacher on duty can be able to attend to all the students. After the reasonable time has been set for the teacher to would have arrived at school. Information on the set time will have to be communicated to parents through school newsletters that come at the end of a school term. The circular should clearly indicate that students must not be dropped at the school gate before 7.40 am as there will be no teacher to supervise before that time and that the school will not accept responsibility for the students dropped by the school gate before the set time. The children who will arrive at school at 7.40 am will be placed in an area that allows the teacher on duty to supervise them collectively. The school will also decide on what the students will be doing at that time since official time for learning will not have reached. The students can be placed in groups for discussion. Incase some parents will ignore the advice in the newsletter and still bring their children to school before 7.40 am , then such parents should be called each individually to school and discuss the issue with the head teacher. The head teacher will explain to the parents that it is impossible for the school to provide supervision to students before 7.40 am and ask the parents to look for ways of occupying students before the set time. This arrangement is important so that the school can always argue that it has put in place adequate measures to safeguard students against any bad eventuality and that any parent who defies the guideline in newsletter should be held accountable for their children’s safety. Another hypothetical scenario is where students leave school grounds and return later to use the grounds. The students could be coming back in the evening or weekends at the time when others are expected to be at home. The newsletter issued to parents should clearly outline that there will be no duty of care given to students who leave the school grounds and later return to use the same grounds. Appendix A of the policy document allows the only exception as being a case of students returning to participate in a school activity in which a teacher will have to be assigned the duty of care. The third scenario is about students who otherwise remain on school grounds at the close of school. For instance when students are forced to remain on school grounds as they wait for a school bus, Appendix A of the policy document on ‘the duty of care-school based applications’ stipulates that the responsibility by a teacher on roster would continue to exist if students remain on school grounds while waiting for a school bus. The onus of giving sufficient supervision will therefore extend until the last bus departs the school grounds. To make this arrangement work well, a duty roster can be prepared for teachers to work in shifts. However, where the teacher was on duty before the official school time and the same teacher is forced to remain in the evening after the official time for leaving, the teacher can delegate the duty of care to a non-teaching member of staff such as the school nurse. Reference Department of Training and Education. (2007). Duty of Care for Students. Government of Western Australia Read More